Relational database and other multi-dimensional databases enable flexible and powerful capabilities to sort, correlate, and analyze data. Relational databases store data in data tables. In a data table, data is stored in columns and rows that can be manipulated to provide flexible online analytical decision support. One or more columns and one or more rows may store text data. It may be desirable to enable users to search the text data stored in the database. To provide improved indexing and search performance, text data may be indexed in an inverse index or comparable data structure that is maintained by an index manager that stores the index separately from and external to the database.
However, when the index data is stored separately from the data, maintaining correspondence between the index data and the data it represents may be difficult in certain situations. For one example, if the index manager should become unavailable as a result of systems or data communications issues, transactions that update the database may not be reflected in the index, and the index will no longer be synchronized with the database. Moreover, if multiple index managers are maintained to accommodate search demand, the indices maintained by the multiple index managers may not be synchronized with each other, and may also not be synchronized with the database. The database may be periodically re-indexed by the index manager, but re-indexing may be time consuming and costly in computer resources.